After a couple of busy weeks at home and work we picked up a one way car rental at the Rochester airport to return to Norfolk. We left at 6:00 a.m. on a Saturday knowing that the dreadful DC Beltway was waiting between us and the boat. We figured that Saturday traffic would be civilized. Wrong again. I happened to be driving that section of the journey and the expletives were flowing from my mouth like rain. These people who put up with this daily are true road warriors. Call me a bumpkin but I like living where traffic and even rush hour is no big deal and you do not have to pass an Offensive Driving Class to get your license. Enough road rage rant.
We arrived at the marina around 4:30 p.m. and were amazed at how clean the boat was on the outside, unpacked the trunk load of stuff that we had brought, found a Food Lion to provision up with (oh, how I miss my Wegmans on these trips!). Lugged the groceries back to the boat, changed all the bedding with the fresh laundry I had taken home and brought back with us. Went out for dinner, took the rental car back to the airport and got an Uber lift back to the boat. Anyone who calls this a "vacation", I will smack you!
GIMMEE SHELTER
Day 12- Sunday, May 8th, 2016 -- Happy Mother's Day
My sweetie had breakfast all ready for me since it was Mother's Day after all. Hmmm, I have spent my birthday and Mother's day on this boat journey this year; I will put that in my book that all us women keep.
I heard from all our kids telling me to have a Happy Mother's Day and that made me happy.
Our silly granddaughters......
Lili lost her tooth at school!
Carmen likes to play in the mud!
We left Norfolk, actually Portsmouth, at 7:00 a.m. amidst all the heavy commercial and military shipping stuff. Being a history fenatic, I get a charge out of passing by the battle ships and aircraft carriers. I was taking pix but military gunboat guy started giving me the stink eye so I put the camera away.
The last time we passed thru here was the spring after 9/11 and I remember a lot more military presence out on the water. Hope we haven't become too complacent again. I'm sure there were eyes watching our every move.
After the Pamlico Sound beating that we took a few weeks ago, I was really dreading the big Chesepeake Bay journey. We entered the bay and to my relief, it was only putting up a 1-2 footer fuss and the sun was bright and the sky and water was a pretty blue. We headed for the famous Chesepeake-Bay-Bridge Tunnel.
This amazing structure was built in 1964 and is 23 miles long. It saves motorists 95 miles on a trip between VA Beach/Norfolk and points north and east of Delaware valley missing the Baltimore-Washington metro nightmare. It has 2 (1) mile long each tunnels as well as the bridge that takes you so far out to sea it is hard to see land. I took my gnarly little VW rabbit across this back in the 70's and I remember feeling the car being pushed by the wind on the huge bridge span. Freaky. It costs $13.00 to cross but is worth avoiding the lousy traffic.
We passed over one of the tunnels and our goal was to reach Solomons Island, MD before dark. Mother nature, that bitch, had OTHER plans for us. The beautiful conditions went almost instantly to hell. The water turned black, the winds and waves picked up to where unsecured things were flying around the boat including out newish flat screen tv that was tied down but popped loose. The bilge alarm kept going on and off, just to add to the chaos.
Dave told me to get on the Garmin and find a safe anchorage to get off the bay. That Garmin app, once again, saved our butts. We had to turn the boat and have the waves crash into us on the sides (a beam sea) and that was really the worst part. We found a little cove among some cottages, dropped anchor and I waited for my heart rate to get back to normal once again. I must give Dave credit here. The old Dave would have pushed on--no matter what the conditions . The revised Dave has my comfort more in mind. He's still nuts but I love him.
While I had some wine Dave made a great Mother's day dinner for me. He really likes to cook on the boat. Cool.
We were both pretty rung out from all the earlier excitement. Dave went to sleep quickly but I've gotten into this bad habit of having to have my audio books put me to sleep--"Mommy, read me a story?". It works though and has cured my insomnia. About fifteen minutes into a book I am out.
I woke up a few times during the night dreading the continuation of the Chesepeake Bay journey in the morning.
Carry On
Day 13-Monday, May 9, 2016.
We woke up to this! Happy us! How quickly conditions can change on the water. We eased our way through the crab pots. I swear all the crab pot guys got together and had a meeting and decided they would all place the crab pots in the boating channel--just for laughs!
Goal for the day--Rock Hall, Maryland. That's where we bought Blue Moon and a cute little waterfront town.
There with no issues getting to Rock Hall but had to negotiate the shallow waters into the quaint old marina that is also has an adorable, historic, B&B where we stayed a few years ago while they were getting the boat ready for us.
We called Jack Hefner, the broker who sold us the boat and asked if he and his wife Linda were free for dinner. They were and picked us up. We went to Waterman's Crab House and had a great meal and exchanged boating stories. Jack is a pretty cool guy and looks like Jimmy Buffett. He's been selling Island Packet sailboats and Menorquins (our boat) among others for years and will sell Blue Moon for us when the time comes. He also owns a cool tropical Margaritaville style clothing store in Rock Hall.
6:00 a.m. shove off comes fast so we skipped trying to watch a movie and went to bed. Tomorrow is the C & D Canal into the large Delaware Bay onto Cape May, New Jersey, and then the Atlantic Ocean coast run to New York City.
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